


feel to follow

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:44:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is dark, barely past midnight, and the bitter cold seeps through the walls of his half-life flat and straight into his bones.<br/>(title borrowed from Feel To Follow - The Maccabees)</p>
            </blockquote>





	feel to follow

Everything before this, to John, is inconsequential.

The push of the air on his lungs is heavy and silent, yet it drowns out the remaining tails of shock coursing through his veins. It is dark, barely past midnight, and the bitter cold seeps through the walls of his half-life flat and straight into his bones.

It is sad, he thinks, that he cannot even fathom any anger. Somewhere in the depths of his head it screams and kicks and begs for release, yearning for freedom - but John can’t manage it right now. It is pathetic and _desperately_ unfair, that he can’t move himself past the shadow of the door and land an aching fist on Sherlock’s jaw. 

He wants to, more than anything.

Sherlock’s face is sharp and mountainous in the night light, though, and John feels a sudden need to run the bridge of his nose and the stretch of his lips along every line of it.

For a long time, there is nothing; a pregnant, painful silence where both of them know and choose to ignore the shift in gravity, the change in the air that whispers through the weave of the carpet and the flats of the walls

“Nothing I can say will be enough, John.” Sherlock states; honest and empty into the air.

For months John has been replaying Sherlock’s voice in his mind, tracing the baritones and curls of it with his memory - and now, _in reality_ , it is so much more intricate than his poor limited brain could have imagined. There is a sudden fullness inside himself that he can’t ignore - no matter how hard he wishes it to be different. Everything seeps into the centre of his chest and swells, rushes like a huge wave and crashes over and over. He feels awake, for the first time in over a year.

John crosses the desert of distance between them and grabs the lapels of Sherlock’s coat. He pulls a bit harder than necessary to force him to dip his neck, and pushes their foreheads together and _breathes him in_.

He thinks, maybe, if he applies enough pressure, he could mold himself into Sherlock and exist only in his brain. And it would be better, for them; to exist as a _one_ instead of a _two_ , colliding and crashing and never quite sticking.

Instead though, he presses their lips together, dry and rough and a thousand worlds away from anything he could possibly comprehend. 

John isn’t surprised at all, then, to find himself moments later being slammed into the fridge, being bruised by the force of another body sharp against his own. His hands thread into Sherlock’s hair and he weaves it around his fingers, he tightens it and _pulls_ and doesn’t let go until Sherlock’s mouth is rough and shaking at his ear - 

“I’ve waited too long for you.”

And John wonders how he manages it, to push and condense so much time and feeling into one single sentence, but it works - _god, how it works_ \- and he can feel it crawl across the planes of his skin and right into his trousers.

Then Sherlock is reaching to flick through the buttons of his shirt, careless and needy, pushing his nose into John’s neck as if he wants to sink right into him. There’s the ghost of a tremble in his long searching fingers that John doesn’t question, because really, he knows the answer.

For some perverse reason that John attempts to ignore, the knowledge that he is special (that Sherlock has chosen him for this,  _him_ , and no one else gets this) makes heat flood to his cock and turns his stomach into some angry twisting wanting monster. John pushes the weight of Sherlock’s coat off his shoulders and takes morbid joy in ripping apart his overly expensive shirt. 

A moment of hesitation transpires; the point of no return and no endings, of something more than whatever pocket of existence they had been moving in before.

Sherlock is the first to break it - surprisingly - and John realises that still, after all of these words, there is so much more he doesn’t understand quite yet.

That thought gets buried, though, as the pads of Sherlock’s fingers trace his ribs, as he scratches his skin with dark eyes. John lets his head slam back against the cold fridge door, attempts to find solace behind his closed lids but instead only sees pale skin and shadowed curls. He inhales sharply as Sherlock traces figures of eight across the goose bumps rising on his chest, intricate and detailed patterns along the concave of his stomach muscles, and it makes sense that even in this, even with the flick of his tongue, _Sherlock is clever_.

John can’t simply receive for much longer though, he needs skin and bone and Sherlock under his hands, and so he pushes himself off the plastic bed of the fridge. There is a need _so desperate_ in the force of his torso against Sherlock’s that he almost sends them falling to the floor - but he catches a wall instead, guides them all hands and lips and clacking teeth to the door of his bedroom, to the soft edge of his bed.

And there is no way he is going to be on his back beneath Sherlock, no way that after this hell of a year he is going to lie there and be taken control of again. John needs to move, he needs to journey and discover and just live in the landscape of skin that his eyes are currently drinking in greedily. 

This is one of the rare moments when he is glad that Sherlock can pretty much see right through him, and knows what he needs. He finds himself being pulled down onto the neatly tucked in sheets of his bed with hands tightly gripping his hips. It is awkward and their legs are in all the wrong places, with Sherlock’s knee jutting painfully into his thigh, but neither of them cares enough to right it. 

There are several agonising moments of desperate cursing on John’s part and frustrated huffing on Sherlock’s part before they are both rid of their trousers - naked, exposed and both trying to visually consume one another.

Sherlock’s lips twitch upwards, and John moans, remembering how beautiful a smile can be.

Something sparks then and they both rush in at the same moment; they become a mess of _heat_ and _skin_ and _sweat_ and John slides a slick hand between to wrap around them both, almost biting through his own lip as a low guttural moan tears from Sherlock’s throat.

It takes him longer than it ever has to build a rhythm, because there are hands _everywhere_ , fingernails digging maps and paths into the skin of his back and arms, Sherlock’s full lips sucking the muscle where his shoulder meets neck, and the sound of his deep rough gasps in the shell of his ear are nearly enough to send John over the edge.

And even though he wants control he is glad when Sherlock’s hand pushes down between them; it dwarfs his own and covers it easily, tightening and speeding up the desperate rhythm John had somehow managed to maintain thus far, making it more erratic and needy and _completely terrifyingly right_.

Sherlock hisses; “Look at me.”

So John does, and sees the dark cloud of arousal in Sherlock’s eyes deepen tenfold and begin to splinter, to _burst_ and scatter to the edges of his pupils as his cock jerks and he spills over their combined hands. John follows, seconds later with his face buried in the crook of Sherlock’s long neck and he says - _God, fuck, Sherlock_ \- and realises vaguely that they’re the first real words from his lips the whole night.

\---

John breathes in frustration because he doesn’t want to leave the safe cavern of Sherlock’s neck but he has to; his whole body is beginning to cramp with the energy of holding himself up (and the reality of what has just happened).

When he rolls onto his side Sherlock does the same, studying the film of come on his fingers before wiping them on the bed sheet. They both breathe, fast and shallow and John is reminded of running through the streets of London, chasing a red herring cab.

  
“I meant what I said, John.” 

Sherlock’s voice is low and rough and scratchy like he hasn’t spoken in a very long while. John swallows, and thinks he has missed that voice more than he had ever imagined. And he doesn’t talk back, because he knows there is too much for him to say.

“We’ve both known it for a long time.”

It is matter of fact, it is simple and it is truth. The words settle in the cavities of John’s mind like cement and solidify - and he knows, then, that everything will be alright. He has never believed in love at first sight or maybe even love itself, and this doesn’t fall into those categories either. There are no common descriptions for something so _acute_.

“Don’t ever leave me like I left you, _please_.” Sherlock says, small and not like himself at all.

There are a thousand reasons why that should make John beyond angry. Because Sherlock _did_ lie to him in the worst way, _did_ leave him, _high and fucking dry_ and completely torn. But there’s plenty of time, now, so much time for him to rage and demand explanation and fight until they can’t fight anymore - so John chooses to move past it, store it somewhere cold and festering for later.

He doesn’t have to answer because everything is so plainly obvious, it always has been. But John feels he needs some roots, something solid he can attach them both to.

“I’ll always be with you, if you let me.” He says and drags his mouth across Sherlock’s chin, impossibly close, his heavy breath questioning.

The response comes in the form of Sherlock’s tongue, delicate against his lips and the sharps of his teeth. It comes in the press of intelligent fingers against his bare chest and the beat of his own heart reverberating against them. Sherlock looks right into him, then, and there is a whole space of _yes, forever_ in his eyes, a huge expanse where John fits, amidst the dying stars.

John thinks maybe, in a few weeks or months, things will settle and he will be able to forgive. He can already feel the tendrils of it, whispering in his blood stream. He doesn’t want to give in, just yet - there’s too much he needs to figure out and too much betrayal still deep in the pores of his skin - but he will, soon. He always does. All it takes is Sherlock, and being around him, and _being part of him_. 

For a long time they lie and get lost in each other. Dawn cracks through the curtains before either of them speaks again.

“This flat is awful, John. Come back to Baker Street with me.”

John feels his own smile stretch over the collar bone he has his head pressed into, and hums against it.

“I’ll cook for you.”

And that really _is_ hilarious, so John full on laughs, can’t stop when he feels Sherlock’s chest start to shake with controlled low rumbling giggles beneath the palms of his hands.

“You bloody will _not_.” He chokes out through the convulsions of laughter, tipping his head up to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “I’ve missed you, Sherlock. Too much.”

“That’s why I came home.” Sherlock replies, dragging his foot absentmindedly along John's calf.

_Home_ , John repeats in his head over and over until his body succumbs to a blanket of sleep. Sometime after, Sherlock joins him in his subconscious and the rise and fall of their chests dance in unison, undisturbed.

John dreams, consumed by the knowledge that when he wakes, he will not be alone.


End file.
